Only Love

by Garrett Leigh

Nick stood. “They let me out for a couple of days to be with Jed.”

  Max glared, taking in the healthy, nourished glow of Nick’s skin. Without the weathered lines of alcohol abuse, he seemed well rested and at ease.

  Lucky him. “Be with him?”

  Nick exchanged a glance with Kim. “He’s my brother, Max. I want to see him.”

  “Well, you’ll have to wait. Carla is with him.” Max’s gaze fell on a foil-wrapped package balanced on top of Kim’s purse. “Is that for me?”

  Kim passed it over without comment. Max unwrapped the sandwich and dropped into yet another hard plastic chair. It was the first thing he’d eaten in twenty-four hours, and it tasted like sawdust, but he forced it down. He wondered if this was how Jed felt all the time, though Dr. Howarth had tried to tell him there was nothing he could’ve done to feed Jed better.

  Feed him. Jed said that made him sound like one of the damn chickens. Max let out a sudden hysterical chuckle.

  “Something funny?”

  “Nope.” Max met Nick’s eyes and tossed the balled-up foil over his head. It missed the trash can. Max picked it up on his way out and glanced over his shoulder. “Are you coming or not?”

  MAX STOOD guard by the window while Nick shuffled to Jed’s bed. Nick touched Jed’s heated skin. He gasped and withdrew his hand like he’d been burned. Perhaps he had. Even from behind, Max could tell he was crying.

  “I’ve seen him like this before….” Nick sucked in a shaky breath. “After surgery in Boston, he was out of it for days, but he was different then. I knew he was going to wake up and give me a hard time without even opening his mouth. Now… fuck. Now it’s like he’s already gone.”

  Max suddenly hated Nick more than he ever had. Hated him for turning his sister into a bored housewife, for teaching his kids to never trust a man, and worst of all, for writing Jed off when he was clinging to life with both hands.

  He lunged forward and shoved Nick away from the bed. “You don’t need to be here if you think he’s already dead.”

  Nick stumbled. Max grabbed Jed’s hand, but instead of a blazing palm, he found unyielding, stone-like flesh. Jed’s hand was like ice. Max’s heart dropped through the floor. He touched Jed’s arms, his chest and face, but found the same. The fever was gone. Jed’s heated flush had paled to a grayish white, and he was cold… cold like death.

  “Oh, God, he’s freezing.”

  A nurse ghosted to Max’s side like a spirit. “Jed’s blood pressure has dropped very low. Dr. Greene is on his way.”

  “What does that mean?” Nick’s voice cut through the terrifying panic beginning to take hold of Max.

  Max rounded on him. “Get out. Get the fuck out. He wouldn’t want you here.”

  “I’m his brother.”

  “No, you’re not!” Max shouted. “You’re not anyone’s anything. If you were, this would never have happened to him.”

  Color ran from Nick’s face. He fled the room and Max fell into the closest chair and scrubbed his face. It was wrong to blame Nick for all Jed had been through. Jed didn’t. Nick had been seventeen when Jed left town. Some young men knew their minds by that age, but Jed said Nick had never been that man. He was easily led, and who better to lead him than his own father? Max stared at Jed. Was that really true? He’d never know, but as Dr. Greene’s shadow darkened the doorway, it didn’t matter anymore.

  Max absorbed the bone-chilling news of septic shock with muted devastation. He put his hand on Jed’s chest, felt the too-fast stampede of his fractured heart and thought of his own father, of the man who’d been something of a stranger, and yet had known Max so well. He thought of Makemba too, the woman who’d loved him to death, but remained ignorant of a fundamental part of his being that made him who he was.

  Jed was different. He owned a part of Max he’d never given to another. Was it too much to ask that they be given the chance to see it through, or was he doomed to love only ghosts?

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  THE SILHOUETTE of a man darkened the doorway. Max squinted over his shoulder. It was 8:00 a.m. and he felt tired… more tired than he could ever remember, but something about the shadow felt familiar. The man was tall and strong, with sandy-brown hair, dog tags beneath his T-shirt, and Army insignia tattooed on his arm.

  The man was a soldier.

  Max scrambled to his feet. “Glenn?”

  The soldier tilted his head to the side and grinned. “The very same. You must be Max.” He held out his hand and pulled Max into a hug. “Good to meet you.”

  Max absorbed the unexpected, warm embrace. He knew Glenn’s face from the photographs Paul had left Jed, but how on earth did Glenn know him? “I don’t understand. How… why are you here?”

  Glenn looked beyond Max and his easy grin faded like it had never been there at all. “A doctor from this hospital left me a message in Colorado a while back. Wanted me to decipher the notes I made in the field. I called him up a week ago and figured I’d come take a look for myself. What the hell happened?”

  Max was at a loss for words. He looked to the open door for help, but none came. “He picked up an infection a few days ago.”

  Glenn picked up the thick chart at the end of the bed. “Is he septic? I thought he was in to treat the anemia.”

  “He had a….” Max faltered. “A camera in his stomach? They think it might have happened then.”

  “An endoscopy?” Glenn scanned Jed’s notes again. “What did they find?”

  Max had no answer to that. He’d never been told what they’d found when they’d looked inside Jed, and he hadn’t thought to ask.

  Glenn went back to flipping through Jed’s chart. Max wondered what he was looking for until he remembered Glenn was a doctor.

  “Most overqualified medic I ever did see. Guy shoulda been a brain surgeon.”

  Glenn’s name seemed to come up every time Jed talked about his life in the Army—paratrooper training, Africa, Iraq. He’d been there at the beginning, and chances were he’d been there at the end. Damn. The man standing at the foot of the bed was one of Jed’s closest friends.

  “How long has he been like this?”

  Max snapped back into the present. “Since yesterday. It happened fast.”

  Glenn whistled. “An invisible enemy. He won’t like that.”

  “I wasn’t here,” Max said flatly, as though Glenn hadn’t spoken. “I was at home. Asleep.”

  He let himself drop back into the chair at Jed’s side. The urge to press his face into Jed’s cool hand was strong, but he let it pass. He knew Glenn was aware of Jed’s sexuality, but sometimes knowing and seeing were two different things.

  A pensive silence settled over the room. With his easy grin, Glenn had slipped into the room like he’d been there all along, but Max could see the lines of desperate worry beginning to form on his face. He studied Jed’s chart, muttering things under his breath, and occasionally touched the strange bruises marking his torso.

  “Do you mind if I take a look at his leg?”

  Max didn’t. Watching the other doctors and nurses put their hands on Jed irritated him. Often he found himself sitting on his hands to stop from shoving them away, but with Glenn it felt different. Maybe because he knew Glenn had cared for Jed long before Max had ever known him.

  Though it didn’t stop him looking away when Glenn pulled the sheets back to examine the gruesome scars on Jed’s left leg. They didn’t usually bother him, but in that moment he couldn’t face another symbol of Jed’s pain.

  Glenn swore again. “Man, they did a rough job with that. Looks like a butcher stitched him up.”

  Max screwed his eyes shut and put his head in his hands. Glenn said no more, but it was a few minutes before Max heard the rustle of sheets being pulled back over Jed. He raised his head to make sure Glenn didn’t pull them up too high—Jed hated having the bedcovers over his chest—but, of course, Glenn didn’t.

  He knows Jed.

  With Glenn’s inventory done, the oppress
ive quiet took hold again, and Max didn’t look up until Glenn muttered a curse.

  “Shit.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I need to tell the others where I am. I left them in the parking lot.”

  “Them?”

  “Luke and Saja.”

  Max froze, unsure if he’d heard right. He’d heard both names before. Luke. He’d seen Luke in Paul’s photos, and Saja was a distinctive name.

  It means to be calm in Arabic.

  “Jed thinks she’s dead.”

  “What?”

  “Saja. He told me she was probably dead.”

  A shadow crossed Glenn’s face. “If he saw what I think he saw, then I understand why he thinks that, but she’s alive, all right. Me and the damn dog were the only fuckers left standing that day.”

  Glenn left the room, presumably to find whoever had made the journey to Portland with him and give them the bad news. A little while later, a wiry African-American man stepped into the room and introduced himself as Luke.

  He didn’t stay long and he didn’t respond to the few words Max managed to say to him, but that suited Max fine. Dr. Greene was due any minute, and the building dread in his stomach was about all he could focus on. He felt better when Glenn came back and took up his post on the other side of the bed.

  The feeling didn’t last. Glenn had only been back a few minutes when Dr. Greene stepped into the room. He nodded at Glenn, like they somehow understood each other, and picked up Jed’s chart. He scribbled something on the top page and stared at Jed for a long moment before he put the clipboard down and sighed.

  “Max, could you step outside for a moment?”

  TEN MINUTES later, Max returned to Jed’s side in a daze. The news wasn’t good. The medical speak went over his head—talk of vapo-suppressing drugs and organ failure—but the conclusion was all too clear: Jed was tired… his body was shutting down, and for the first time, Max truly had to consider that Jed was losing his battle for life.

  As the day slipped away, Max burned with grief from the inside out. The pain was excruciating… crippling in its power. He couldn’t think or speak, he could only stare at the quiet, brooding man who’d stolen his heart.

  He sat slumped with his head on his arms, hardly noticing the others coming and going. At some point a nurse forced him out to stretch his legs.

  Numb, he made his way to the waiting area and took in the scene through hazy eyes: Dan was pacing the room and Carla stood mutinous at the window, her hunched shoulders warning off any approach. In the corner, Nick and Kim sat huddled together, united in Nick’s grief for a brother Max didn’t believe he deserved. His gaze fell on Hector and Anna, who sat in the corridor with their hands clutched, and his heart broke a little bit more. Their quiet, dignified pain was too much to bear.

  Max retook his place at Jed’s side. He took his hand and traced the darkly inked skin of his forearm. It was a gesture Jed seemed to find soothing on the rare occasions he let his discomfort show.

  “Where are his tags?”

  Glenn’s voice startled him. It had been so long since either of them spoke. “His dog tags? Like yours?”

  Glenn twisted the chain around his neck. “Yeah. Did they cut them off him?”

  “I don’t think so. I’ve never seen him wearing them.”

  Glenn frowned, and Max went back to fiddling with Jed’s lifeless hand. His own hands trembled as he tried to memorize every vein and nuance. Dr. Greene had said that unless Jed made a significant improvement in the next few hours, it was likely he’d die in the night. There’d been talk of letting him go peacefully, but no one could live with that. Jed was a fighter, and he didn’t want to die. Max didn’t know much, but he knew that.

  Or did he? How could he know what Jed wanted? In their short time together, they’d hidden so much from each other. Did Max really know Jed at all?

  Max closed his eyes and thought of his life before Jed. Thought of the haunting prospect of life without him, and swallowed a sob. He couldn’t bear it… he couldn’t bear this.

  Glenn grasped his elbow. “Let’s get some air.”

  He led Max through the hospital and out into the gray drizzle. Across the parking lot, Luke sat on a bench beneath a large tree, a lean, short-coated German shepherd at his feet.

  Saja.

  Max swallowed the lump in his throat. His heart ached for Flo, locked up at the Valescos. The two days that had passed were the longest he’d ever been without her. He dropped down beside Saja and let her sniff him. She stared solemnly at him in much the same way Flo had at Jed all those months ago, and then she put her paws on his knees for a closer inspection.

  Glenn lit a cigarette. Luke glanced up at him and said something in a language Max didn’t understand. Glenn didn’t answer with words. Instead he closed his eyes. After hours and hours of watching everyone else fall apart, it seemed he’d finally lost his composure.

  Luke let him be. He leaned forward and scratched Saja’s ears. “Any change?”

  The cadence of his speech was slow and deliberate, something Max hadn’t noticed before. “No, he’s the same.”

  Luke frowned and glanced at Glenn’s back. “Sorry, what?”

  Glenn flicked his spent cigarette away and lit another. “You need to speak up,” he explained. “Luke’s deaf in one ear and impaired in the other. He’s not as quick as he used to be, but he’ll understand you well enough if you speak clearly.”

  Luke stared at Max expectantly. Max dug deep and steeled himself to repeat Jed’s bleak prognosis aloud. “He’s unconscious. They don’t think he’s going to wake up.”

  “Wake up?” Luke looked to Glenn for confirmation. “All this is from an infection? What kind of infection?”

  Glenn shook his head. “Don’t worry about that now. I’ll explain it to you later.”

  Luke appeared satisfied. He sat back on the bench as Dan and Hector joined them and stood close to Max, flanking him.

  “Sorry,” Luke said to Max. “The bombing messed up my ears.”

  He said it like Max knew what he was talking about. Max didn’t have a clue, and he couldn’t find the words to ask.

  Dan could. “What bombing?”

  “Jed didn’t tell you?” Luke exchanged a meaningful glance with Glenn, who averted his gaze again. “He didn’t tell you what happened to us?”

  Dan pulled out a cigarette of his own and leaned against the tree. “He didn’t tell us shit. He just came home in bits.”

  The words were harsh, but Max was sure they were nothing short of the truth. Trouble was, they didn’t mean anything to him. He hadn’t known Jed before, so he didn’t understand what the others had lost.

  Glenn sighed. Saja flicked her ears in response. Max watched her, trying to figure out who she belonged to. She was standing guard over Luke, that much was clear, but her eyes followed Glenn’s every movement.

  “When did the Casualties Notification Officer contact his brother?”

  Dan frowned. “I’m not sure. Max, do you remember?”

  Max thought back. “Soldiers came to the house. I don’t remember what they called themselves.”

  “When did they come?” Glenn pressed. “Do you remember the date?”

  “The nineteenth… I think it was the nineteenth of August.”

  Luke leaned forward, like he hadn’t quite heard. “The nineteenth?” He shook his head. “When did they tell you it happened?”

  “They weren’t specific.” Max frowned. Or had they been? Though he’d understood the gravity of Jed’s injuries at the time, the details hadn’t mattered. Nick’s distress had been hard to witness, but it hadn’t meant much to him.

  “It happened on the tenth.”

  Glenn’s tone was deceptively flat. Something simmered beneath it—a bitterness that set Max’s teeth on edge. “The tenth? Maybe I’ve got the date—”

  “No, you’ve got it right. I’m just surprised they came in person. They usually do that when someone’s dead. At leas
t, that’s how it used to be.”

  Max glanced at Glenn, taking in his strong frame and even features. He was a good-looking man, but he was older than Jed, quite a bit older, and he’d clearly seen too much of the world. “Why did they come all the way here if they didn’t have to?”

  “Who knows? Maybe they wanted to be sure you heard it from them first.”

  Max was lost. Out of habit, he leaned on Saja next to him, absorbing her warmth.

  Hector cleared his throat. “I know this is difficult for both of you, but will you tell us what happened that day? We’ve never really known.”

  Glenn tossed his second cigarette. His eyes were shrewd as he debated his next move. “I can’t tell you everything, and I can’t tell you how it was through Jed’s eyes, but I can tell you how it happened for me.”

  “Friday.” Luke said suddenly. “It was Friday. I remember because we had to stop for Friday prayers.”

  A ghost of a smile flickered over Glenn’s face. “Yeah, it was a Friday, Luke. It was midday when the first shot was fired. It was all over thirty minutes later.”

  “Shots? You mean like a gunfight?”

  “That’s how it started.” Glenn reached for yet another cigarette, but this time he didn’t light it. Instead, he rolled it between his finger and thumb. “We were in a convoy headed east when it was hit by mortar fire. It was an ambush.”

  “That was in the north, no?”

  Glenn glanced at Hector. “Yeah. We were based near Kirkuk. We dropped in and out of Fallujah and Baghdad from time to time, but most of our work was in the north.”

  “What happened next?”

  “What always happened. We pointed our guns and kicked ass. The RPGs caught us napping, but we had the edge in firepower. We should’ve contained it.”

  “What went wrong?” Max’s voice was hoarse, and he wasn’t even sure he wanted an answer.

  “The world blew up,” Luke said when Glenn failed to respond. Oddly, he’d caught Max’s whispered words. “I don’t remember much after that. Just Paul shouting, and the fire.”

  “Fire?” Dan echoed.